Mavis Staples: From Stax, to Prince, to an acclaimed Civil Rights album

Tony Cummings writes on the six decade career of soul and gospel diva MAVIS STAPLES

Mavis Staples

One of the most welcome and unexpected showbiz comebacks of recent
times is that of Mavis
Staples. Her 'We'll Never Turn Back' album has been widely
acknowledged as a classic and its powerful evocation of the civil
rights era with its old and new songs and a stunning production from
guitar maestro Ry Cooder again highlights one of popular music's great
vocalists. Though the 67 years old singer is past the peak of her
powers which made those Staple Singers million sellers for Stax
Records, like "Respect Yourself" and "If You're Ready (Come Go With
Me)", such mesmerising listening, Mavis' rich, husky contralto today
remains soulfully intact. And 'We'll Never Turn Back' with its emotive
musical pictures of the segregated South and the fight for freedom is
the perfect creative palate for the veteran diva.

The idea for the album sprang from Anti- Records president Andy
Kaulkin, who signed Mavis after learning she had exited her Alligator
Records contract. Kaulkin said he was inspired by the civil rights
book Walking With The Wind written by Congressman John Lewis, and
pitched the concept of an album to Mavis when she would tackle music
of those times. The opening track "Down In Mississippi" sets the
context of the dark days of segregation. Mavis' opening monologue over
a track that brilliantly fuses Cooder's slide blues guitar and an
acoustic mandolin with a ricocheting electronic rhythm is plucked from
Mavis' memories and her visits to her grandma in Mississippi. "As far
back as I can remember, I either had a plough or a hoe," working in
the hot Black Belt sun. Danger was everywhere - someone would go to
jail for shooting a rabbit out of the hunting season, but "the season
was always open on me. . ." Water fountains were segregated; so were
"washaterias".

The old songs on 'We'll Never Turn Back' are equally powerful. Wrote
reviewer Lester Feder, "She shakes powerful Civil Rights Era songs
free of the layers of clichéd idealism that have tarnished them in the
eyes of modern audiences. No aging hippies holding hands here.
Staples's rendition of such tunes as 'Eyes On The Prize', 'On My Way',
'This Little Light Of Mine' and '99 And A Half' remind the listener
that these musical gems remain among America's most powerful MUSIC,
not just historical monuments to a political movement."

Several of the songs are associated with the courageous work of the
Rev Martin Luther King. Mavis has vivid memories of how she first got
to know the civil rights leader. She told Jeffrey Brown about a day in
1963 in Montgomery, Alabama. "We were working there that night. Pops
called us and told us, 'Listen, y'all, this man Martin is here, Martin
Luther King, and I want to go to his church. He has a church, Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church, and would you all like to go?' We said, 'Yes,
Pops. We want to go.' We all went to Dr King's church that Sunday
morning for an 11:00 service. We go back to the hotel. Pops called us
again. 'Listen, you all, I really like this man's message. And I think
if he can preach it, we can sing it.'"

Mavis admitted that initially she was sceptical about the whole 'We'll
Never Turn Back' civil rights concept. But then, as she told Billboard
magazine, she spent a little time thinking about current events. "I
realised what these songs were about wasn't all in the past. You've
got Katrina and all of these black people - and some whites - floating
around in this water with signs asking for help. And you've got
policemen shooting these black guys with 50 shots. Why? And then you
have a white comedian standing onstage and shouting the 'N' word. So
it's all still here."

It is of course the "freedom songs" the Staples Singers recorded in
the '60s which were the group's first step away from the strictly
gospel songs of their early recordings. On a crackling telephone line
from her Chicago home Mavis reminisced to Cross Rhythms about those
difficult times. "In the middle of the 1960s there were nine black
children trying to board a bus to go to school in Little Rock,
Arkansas and they called these children The Little Rock 9. We have
seen them recently, they are grown people now but these people, the
white people gave them such a bad time trying to go to school. This
went on for weeks, so it finally came to a head and the Governor of
Arkansas said let those children go to school. Then the Mayor of
Little Rock let the children go to school and the President of the
United States said we would let those children board that bus and go
to school. So we are sitting there watching the news. We wanted to see
the kids go to school and just as they got ready to board the bus a
policeman was standing there and he put his club across the door. Pops
said, 'Now why should he do that?! Why he treating them so bad?' He
wrote that song that evening and that song turned out to be Dr King's
favourite song. We would sing before Dr King would speak and he would
tell Pops, we would be going to the auditorium and he would say, 'Now
you gonna sing my song tonight, right?' and Pops said, 'Oh yeah Dr
King, we are gonna sing you a song!'"

It was during the Staple Singers' stay at Epic Records that they
recorded "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)". It was also for that company
that Mavis made her first stab at a solo career, recording a
quasi-religious country song that had been a big doowop hit for the
Orioles, and pop hit for Elvis Presley. But as it turned out Mavis Staples' rendition
of "Crying In The Chapel" sank without trace. It wasn't until later
when the Stax subsidiary Volt Records released Mavis' highly regarded
solo albums 'Mavis
Staples' (1969) and 'Only For The Lonely' (1970) that Mavis really
began to take on her own identity outside of the family group. More
solo albums on Curtom, 'A Piece Of The Action' (1977), and Warner
Bros, 'Oh What A Feeling' (1979), followed but it was only when the
Staple Singers began to wind down in the late '80s that Mavis came
into her own as a venerated solo soul diva with the help of an '80s
R&B superstar. She told Blues & Soul magazine, "When I first
met Prince it was in August of '87. He came to the LA Forum to watch
us when we were playing an oldies show. I told my sister, 'I'm gonna
be real cool when I meet Prince.' I was backstage and he came walking
towards me with this little hip walk, tight suit and cane - and cool
just went out the window! I screamed just like a kid!

"The first thing I told him was, 'I've gotta kiss you for my mama,'
because she's a big Prince fan. He said, 'Kiss me on the other cheek
for mama too.' When I first met him, though, he wouldn't really talk
to me then. He'd just stand there and smile and blush. He stayed in
the dressing room about 45 minutes. I was talking the whole time and
he'd just give me one or two word answers. He was so shy, but I picked
up some beautiful vibes from him. Then my daddy walked into the room
and walked up to Prince and looked him in the face and said, 'Young
man, it's mighty nice of you to come out here and meet Mavis.' Prince
looked at daddy and said, 'You can play.' I went back to the hotel and
said to myself, 'Now if we're gonna work together, I've gotta find a
way we can communicate,' so I started writing him letters, every
chance I could get. Finally he started calling up."

Mavis' first album for Prince's Paisley Park, 'Time Waits For No One',
suffered from a lack of radio play and though she had a role in
Prince's Graffiti Bridge movie and recorded a second album with
Prince, 'The Voice' in 1993, somehow the expected big hit eluded the
diva. Mavis looks back on her years with Prince with considerable
warmth. Despite his sexually explicit lyrics, his controversial stage
act and eccentric posturings Mavis saw another side of the genius
musician. She told Cross Rhythms, "Prince knows that his talent is a
gift from God. He plays every instrument and nobody taught him how to
do that you know! He would question Yvonne, my sister, and me and we
would talk about the Bible. We told him, 'One day you gonna preach!'
He's such a humble person, his heart is good. Now I hate to say it, I
don't know what your faith is, but he's gotten with the Jehovah
Witnesses and I am so sad about that. He calls me, he talks to me and
tells me all about the Bible. He says, 'Mavis you are way ahead of me,
I want to catch up with you.'

In 1996 Mavis teamed up with jazz organist Lucky Peterson for a
back-to-the-roots project, 'Spirituals And Gospel: Dedicated To
Mahalia Jackson' for Verve Records but it seemed that with each
passing year the singer was moving further and further away from the
showbiz spotlight and, with Pops dying in 2000 and Cleotha contracting
Alzheimer's disease in 2001, Mavis all but retired. But then record
producer Jim Tullio began looking for someone to sing a song he wrote
as a tribute to friends he lost in the September 11 2001 tragedy.
Mavis and Tullio hit it off and began working on the song "In Times
Like These" and soon a whole album was in the making. With its strong
set of gospel songs, including a searing version of "Will The Circle
Be Unbroken", the first song her father taught his children, Staples
booking agent Mike Kappus shopped the album 'Have A Little Faith' to
several labels and it was Chicago blues label Alligator Records who
picked it up for release in 2004.

Mavis told Billboard magazine that the goal of 'Have A Little Faith'
was to encourage people. She said, "I wanted to shed a ray of light on
our world. We're living in such troubled times. I wanted it to be
healing. I know how healing music is and I felt certain we could put
an album together that would be uplifting."

Now things have very much come full circle for Mavis with 'We'll Never
Turn Back' appearing in numerous Best Albums Of 2007 lists (including
Cross Rhythms). So is there anything left for the singer who has
shared a stage with Bob Dylan, Mahalia Jackson, Prince and Janis
Joplin and sung for three presidents - Kennedy, Carter and Clinton?
Mavis told me near the close of our conversation, "With my music I
want to show people that we can overcome every injustice and every
trial. And most important, people need to know they can be converted,
can be changed. You know, prayer changes things. God changes things.
If you'll let him God is able to carry you through. You can be the
worst person in the world. A lot of men who are in jail, they have
committed crimes, but in prison they find God. They are given a Bible
in jail and they are just changed. So, God is a forgiving God, you
know. And you can change. You can go in bad and turn our good."

The opinions expressed in this article are
not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed
views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may
not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a
later date.

About Tony Cummings

Tony Cummings is the music editor for Cross Rhythms website and attends Grace Church in Stoke-on-Trent.

Reader Comments

Posted by LargeRoomNoLight in New York City @ 15:31 on Feb 4 2008

I love Mavis. It's good to see her doing positive things and
staying active. I remain in full support of her efforts. It
was sad when I heard that Prince could not talk to her
because of his religious beliefs. The insanity of separatism
can be so defeating. Unity through the acceptance of God is
something he has always preached since 1982. That’s the
reason I became interested in him. He has expressed in the
recent past that under God's law, separation ceases. How can
he articulate that, and then join a collective that promotes
separation into what he refers to on the “Rainbow Children”
CD as 'this, or that which is not this'? We can't, in his
words, 'come together as one' if we do that. When I read
here that his CONversion to Jehovah’s Witness made Mavis
sad, I almost cried. I know how much she loves him. That
must have crushed her. I hope they can turn that around. But
it's a learning process for him I'm sure, and if that's so,
this too will bring him to a better place in the end. You
cannot profess knowledge of something you are unwilling to
subject yourself to the experience of; and you cannot
discuss the roundness of the earth unless you can first
know, understand, and accept the reasons it cannot be flat.

i'm very happy about this and the staple singers article -
for years I thought that the staple singers and the amazing
gospelblues albums of pops staples and a big part of the
solo work of the mavis staples are a good example (maybe the
best example) how good and important and musically excellent
christian music can be within the context of the whole music
history of the last fifty years (I hope my english is good
enough and you understand what i'm trying to say) wolfgang

Fantastic article on Mavis Staples, the most wonderful
singer in the world and someone to whom all of these
neurotic, new young artists should aspire. She is as nice a
person as she is a great singer, and she has worked with us
in Memphis at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, where
she and her family are well-represented, and with the
at-risk young people of our Stax Music Academy, who adore
her. Thanks for the great article!